Builds BUILD THREAD FOR THE "German Shepherd"

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Console pad is done and on thus completing the console build finally.

 

[LS1FJ40]

Jr. Your 80 is my favorite 80 but those seat covers gotta go. Need a new color.

 

[LS1FJ40]

Dig the console btw. Nice work.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Jr. Your 80 is my favorite 80 but those seat covers gotta go. Need a new color.

Yeah...the color has been bugging me. They are just so comfy and a new set is so expensive.

 

[LS1FJ40]

Yeah, sorry. Didn't mean to hate. haha. I hear those covers are great. I only had a budget for the $20 Cabela's covers.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Yeah, sorry. Didn't mean to hate. haha. I hear those covers are great. I only had a budget for the $20 Cabela's covers.

Nah just motivation to save for a new set. I regret this color. My brother started off going with the nice dark gray color that I should have gone with since the beginning. I think mine look good when the windows are down looking in from the outside, but otherwise are kind of strange for the interior. The tan also shows a lot, and I'm constantly (trying to) clean them.

 

[LS1FJ40]

Trip has a leg up on you! And here I was worried that @SUMMIT CRUISERS III wouldn't be able to keep up with big bro and pops...

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Haven't done a whole lot of work on the truck lately. I've been busy with school, but I managed to get away for a trip to the Ozark National Forest with @duggy and a few others.

This is where I started getting a little unhappy as the trees and brush were just too close for my liking. All for a wrong turn on the trail. I guess it isn't a good idea to follow a monstalined vehicle in a vehicle with nearly perfect paint, but I just kept reminding myself of the classic saying of "it will buff out."

The aftermath.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

I've since had another issue with my CX300.1 amplifier. I'm not sure what exactly caused the voice coil to fry in my 10CVT654 subwoofer, but I replaced the amp. At the time of install, the amp worked, but the sub sounded like garbage so I turned the option off on my headunit. After several months I decided to mess with it again, and much to my surprise I was no longer getting any signal out of the amp. I eliminated the RCA cables, the power and ground come are the same as my KX400.4 amp, and all settings had been adjusted with no output. I finally had time to pull the amp today, and I am going to be sending it back for a warranty replacement.

I purchased it through Hifisoundconnection on eBay, and their customer service has been great, and they offer a 1 year warranty on Kicker refurb vs just the 90 day Kicker warranty on refurbs.

Then I started hand buffing all the gloss black around the windows. I still have work to do to get it back to perfect, but it's getting there.

After replacing some idler pulleys off a pick yard FJ80, they all have gone bad.

So off came the fan shroud, fan, belts, pulleys, and tensioner.

They are all 37mm bearings. On the tensioner, there were 4 welds that a plasma cutter precisely cut out of the way, and a large hitch pin worked perfectly to punch the bearings out.

Hopefully right after Christmas I will be starting my next swing out build. The spindles just arrived today, and I have a JDM 80 series license plate holder that I am going to use. I still need to get the steel and some FJ40 bits for the fold down table. I am also replacing the driver's side bumper wing LED light since the middle strip went dim last summer and it has been bugging me ever since.

 

[LS1FJ40]

Just a little Kentucky Pinstriping...

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

After my previous 2 mono amps for the sub turned out to be bad, I received a new one and put it in. When I hooked it up to test, I didn't get any warning lights and I played with all the settings on my headunit, but for some reason I am still not getting any movement from the subwoofer (I tested it with a brand new subwoofer right out of the box). When I went to test with the voltmeter, instead of getting a fluctuating signal, the sub is only recieving a constant signal. Not sure why a simple mono block amplifier set up is giving me such a hard time, but I'm about to be at my Wit's End and give up on running a sub since the door speakers put out enough bass.


Yesterday, we finished up the passenger side swing out for the Yeti. I also put the tent back on for an up coming trip to the Palo Duro next weekend.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

I installed a front dash grab handle several weeks ago, but otherwise I haven't done much on the cruiser lately. I've just been taking it in camping and hiking trips around the state.

I'm leaving for a 2000+ mile Colorado/Utah next weekend and needed to get some thing taken care of. I started by going to Coffee and Cars. Then I took the roof top tent off as its not needed for this trip, and the less weight on the roof in Moab the better.

A couple weekends ago on the way back from a biking trip I went to turn on the ac and the compressor and clutch locked up. Unfortunately, those two parts didn't come in and are scheduled to come in Monday.

My front seat belts also started fraying beyond repair, so a couple like new replacements were swapped in. The passenger belt is out of a mid 90's Camry. Also the engine got its oil changed along with the front diff. The front driver's side axle started leaking a couple months ago which I though was weird after redoing everything a year ago when the gears were installed. One of the Koyo bearings had gone bad.

Got everything cleaned up nicely and put it on the lift to grease the driveshafts. Anyone notice anything missing in this picture?

Yeah the brake rotor shield was forgotten. I left it outside when cleaning it and then it got dark. So we spent another hour to get everything pulled off and reinstalled.

When the driver's tire was off I noticed some strange cracking going on while I rolled it around. While the cruiser was on the lift I decided to take a closer look at all the tires. They have <15k miles on them and I'm not too happy.

This was one of the worst spots on the passenger front. The crack was also very deep.

I counted at least 6 questionable spots on each tire. The driver's front had 14 spots.

This was another of the worse ones. The lug felt like it could be wiggled off right there.

 

[Serina]

@SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr can you explain the process of pulling apart the depos? I have a brand new set I would like to paint

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Wow I have totally been slacking on updating this thread.

@SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr can you explain the process of pulling apart the depos? I have a brand new set I would like to paint

Anyways to take apart the depos I used @2000UZJ's advice on baking them for 8 minutes glass side down on a cookie sheet at 275 degrees. Then I used a dull butter knife to start gently prying the lens off. As the lens started coming off, the glued would harden and I would slice it with an exacto knife. I may have been too slow with the process but I may have ended up having to put them back in the over for 1-2 more minutes just to resoften the glue as they came apart. Once the glass was separated, the surround just popped out. Pretty much the same procedure for reassembling but I added some black silicon to help seal them back up if I saw a spot that even seemed remotely questionable.

 

[Golgo13]

Everybody uses the oven... wouldn't a heat gun accomplish the same thing?

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Everybody uses the oven... wouldn't a heat gun accomplish the same thing?

I suppose so. It would definitely help prevent having to use the oven for the second time to reheat certain areas. My only concern would be it heating the headlight unevenly the first time around as parts would cool as you get to the other areas...and I doubt my mom would have let me use a heat gun near the kitchen table haha

 

[Serina]

Yes I was thinking of going with the heat gun route myself. @jcardona1 used a heat gun on his.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Ok well I guess I will attempt to update this in a concise way.

The cracking Kenda tires were replaced under warranty around 375k miles. Around this same time I replaced the AC compressor, drier, and almost every oring in the system. I also removed the blower fan and some egr related thing in order to open up some space for the future 2nd battery. Then I headed out to Utah/Colorado.

Here are a couple details/highlights from that trip.

SW Colorado and Moab trip summary 2016

Nearly 2400 problem free miles on my 92 LC in a week.

Passed 375,000 miles on the original drivetrain.

Roughly a month after this trip after getting some chips in the windshield, I had it replaced along with a new gasket installed as water would occasionally start entering the cabin. I was pretty surprised to not even see a hint of rust after having that windshield in for that long. It isn't the original. but it may have lasted a good 200k miles give or take. After this I took the cruiser out to Little Sahara in NW Oklahoma while "Doin' the Dunes" was going on. I am fairly certain there was nothing slower than my 3FE cruiser there.

For summer 2016, I had the cruiser prepped and loaded for a 2+ week to Colorado with a couple friends. The morning before we were leaving, the alternator decided to die. Luckily I was able to install one the next morning and hit the road.

Just before that trip, I made a lighting system for my RTT that plugs into a rear 12v outlet. It has a waterproof plug that exits just outside of the tent, so I don't have to worry about a long wire and 12v plug getting crushed or damaged while folding up the tent. As I hardly ever use the annex, everything runs through the channel it would slide onto which makes it very clean and hard to damage.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

After driving to Colorado Springs for our first night of the trip, we made the unfortunate mistake of setting up camp on Gold Camp Road. Needless to say, we left that area quickly around midnight and stayed in a friend of a friend's basement. Then we headed towards Woodland Park and found a place where we could get away from people. The next day we left Woodland Park and headed for Golden. With a tailwind and being mostly downhill, the cruiser may have set a record for highest fuel efficiency. I still can't believe it when I say it, but it only took 4.xx gallons to go 100 miles netting 24.5 mpg!!!

Long story short, we ended up driving a big loop from Okc-Denver-Breckenridge-Crested Butte-Telluride-Durango-Pagosa Springs and then spent our final night above Red River, NM. The next morning I was pulled over for the first time ever and given a speeding ticket. Here's what I wrote about it on ExPo and I am still a little mad that I got it. In retrospect I should have just said "I have a 3FE" and he may have just let me go.

After just being passed by a smaller car we came around a corner doing 42 when the recommended speed of the corner was 40 to a cop car with his lights already on. We slowed down as the next corner ahead showed a construction zone speed limit of 35mph. I pulled over to let the cop pass as I thought he was going after the small red car and he followed me off to the side of the road. After he got out of his car he is looking at me and starts touching our bikes, yeti cooler, and trasharoo. He then comes around to the passenger side and has me roll down all of my windows and seems pretty demanding. I get that there's a feeling that he would like to be safe, but it was all very strange. He then told me I was going 10 over in a 35 which I tried to politely argue on the spot that I hadn't entered the construction zone yet and he was adamant I was going way too fast (the cruiser feels like it could tip if I go faster than the recommended speeds for semi's on corners so I have no desire to speed through winding roads I don't know). He didn't seem to care and at this point he had me step out and follow him back to his car where he just started asking tons of questions. I was pretty sure he was going to search us and I was hoping he would ask just so I could say no and make him get a warrant to waste his time, but he didn't and ended up giving me a $72 ticket which was a relief. I figured I would be getting a several hundred dollar ticket for speeding in his so-called construction zone as fines are doubled. Does this mean a 10 over speeding ticket in NM is $36?

This trip ended up being just shy of 3000 miles all said and done, and I never once had to open the tool bag to work on the Cruiser. The bikes on the other hand needed a bit more attention. IIRC we rode roughly 150 miles of single track in the 2nd week alone.

This may be my favorite spot on Earth. Believe me when I say that the view from the other side is way better. The sun just wasn't cooperating with my lack of camera skills.

This is some road we followed all the way to its end. Perfect place to camp and never saw another person.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

After coming back to Oklahoma for just long enough to wash it, take the tent off, and change the oil, I was off to Wyoming for a 3500 mile trip lasting 8 days. The first day started with a really long drive from OKC to Laramie, Wyoming, and by noon of the next day we had arrived in Jackson Hole. I had never been to Yellowstone, or even that far north so this was a really fun trip to see areas that I haven't seen before whereas I am pretty familiar with Colorado. From Jackson Hole, we decided to drive out to South Dakota. Interestingly enough, Sturgis was about to start so it was cool seeing some of that. Checking out the Crazy Horse Carving outside of Custer, SD was honestly one of the highlights to the trip. It blew my mind that it was privately funded and the largest active stone carving in the world. Oddly, Mt. Rushmore was smaller than I expected.

I definitely want to get back out to the Black Hills again. That area was really cool and there were forestry roads all over the place.